Commercial applications for soy isoflavones have grown significantly in recent years. This is fueled by research revealing the potential health benefits of diets containing soy products and increasing interest in functional foods. Much of the benefit in soyfoods is thought to come from the isoflavone component of the soybean. In order to introduce isoflavones into the American diet, food manufacturers are offering ordinary foods supplemented with isoflavones. Therefore there is a need by health food producers for natural sources of isoflavone concentrates or extracts. We have identified a source for an isoflavone extract coming from an existing bacterial fermentation used for the production of erythromycin. This fermentation process would generate highly purified isoflavones in large quantities if the producing organism were altered to inactivate the genes that cause isoflavones in the growth medium to degrade during the fermentation. This modification to the organism would be technically simple to perform once the genes are identified. In Phase I we propose to characterize the isoflavone degradation pathway. In Phase II we propose to find the degradation genes and inactivate them, thus creating isoflavones as an added value product of the erythromycin fermentation. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION: NOT AVAILABLE